The dollar advanced in early Asia trade on Monday, as strong U.S. jobs data and complications in the U.S.-Iran ceasefire boosted demand for the currency.<\/p>\n
Yaorusheng | Moment | Getty Images<\/p>\n
The dollar advanced against its major peers in early Asia trade on Monday, supported by strong U.S. jobs data released late last week and as the U.S.-Iran ceasefire hung by a thread, boosting demand for the safe-haven currency.<\/p>\n
The euro<\/a>\u00a0was down 0.2% at $1.1767, the yen<\/a>\u00a0slipped 0.1% to 156.905 yen per dollar and the British pound<\/a>\u00a0was 0.3% lower at $1.3597. The risk-sensitive Australian dollar<\/a>\u00a0slipped 0.2% to $0.7234, while its kiwi<\/a> counterpart weakened 0.3% to $0.5948.<\/p>\n “We start the new trading week, as has so often been the case of late, reacting to geopolitical headlines,” said Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone Group Ltd in Melbourne.<\/p>\n Oil prices\u00a0jumped\u00a0as trading resumed on Monday, with Brent crude<\/a>\u00a0up 3.3% at $104.65 a barrel, after\u00a0President Donald Trump\u00a0on Sunday\u00a0rejected\u00a0Iran’s response to a U.S. proposal for peace talks, dashing hopes for an imminent end to the 10-week-old\u00a0conflict.<\/p>\n “I don’t like it \u2014 TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, without giving further detail.<\/p>\n Against the Chinese yuan<\/a>, the U.S. dollar was flat at 6.7951 yuan in offshore trade after data released at the weekend showed\u00a0China’s export growth\u00a0accelerated in April. Exports increased 14.1% from a year earlier in dollar terms, outpacing the 2.5% gain in March and a 7.9% rise tipped by economists as factories raced to meet AI-related demand.<\/p>\n The dollar index<\/a>, which measures the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading at 98.001 in early Asia. The greenback has found support from the\u00a0U.S. jobs report\u00a0released Friday that showed non-farm payrolls increased 115,000 in April, almost twice as fast as expected. Those figures reinforced expectations the Federal Reserve<\/a> would keep interest rates unchanged for some time.<\/p>\n “The dollar remained on the back foot last week, with the market laser-focused on prospects for a gradual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, with the breakthrough potentially coinciding with the Trump-Xi meeting,” strategists from Barclays wrote in a research report.<\/p>\n “That said, U.S. data remains resilient and the labor market appears to have stabilized across a number of data sets,” they added.<\/p>\n Trump\u00a0and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to discuss Iran, Taiwan, artificial intelligence, nuclear weapons and critical minerals when they\u00a0meet\u00a0later this week, according to U.S. officials.<\/p>\n